A Hungry Disciple
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What does it mean to GROW in Christ
Intro
Intro
Many of us are not hungry for God’s Word!
The 2019 Discipleship Pathway Assessment study from Nashville-based LifeWay Research found those who regularly attend Protestant churches are inconsistent in their reading and thinking about Scripture.
A third of Americans who attend a Protestant church regularly (32%) say they read the Bible personally every day. Around a quarter (27%) say they read it a few times a week.
To grow in Christ includes reading Scripture
Not for knowledge or to look for examples of how to live
Not necessarily as a self-help book
Scripture does not always include all issues on all things
Sufficiency of Scripture is particular to Salvation. Points us to Christ.
Sola Scriptura - Scripture Alone
Drama
Drama
Paul and Silas in Barea
Enter a synagogue to share the gospel
Doctrine
Doctrine
A Disciple receives God’s Word eagerly
They knew that what God offered was better what what they had already
To see what God says about Christ
They knew that looking inward was insufficient
A disciple needs to have a healthy view of themself
Sinner, once an enemy of God, saved by His grace
A disciple needs to have a theology
How I think about God
There is a misnomer in some churches that you don’t need theology but only Jesus
The error is which Jesus? The moral example, the good guy with good words?
We should receive what God tells us in His word with eagerness ( willingness, readiness)
Humility willing to learn
A disciple examines God’s Word daily
Reformers believed that all men should have access to the Scriptures and do not need a Priest to tell them what it means
They believed that everyone had access to God’s Word and that even the unlearned could have an understanding of God and salvation
It was a believe that anyone should be able to think theologically
To examine what God says about himself
John Calvin starts the Institutes of Christian Religion with:
Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God
Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves
Calvin, J. (2011). Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2. (J. T. McNeill, Ed., F. L. Battles, Trans.) (Vol. 1, p. 35). Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press.
To see what God says about Christ
A disciple believes God’s Word completely
We believe the inerrancy of Scripture
We believe the Authority of Scripture
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
1 tim 3:16-17
God speaks and His truth is greater than anything man can think or reason
God graciously speaks to his people in His Word
Doxology
Doxology
Scripture shows us God’s grace
He loves us and speaks to us
He tells us everything we know for belief in Jesus
He tells us about himself through his work in the world
Mostly he turns us from looking inside of ourselves to looking unto Christ
Jesus tells us that these Scriptures are a witness to Him
You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me,
John 5
Road to Emmaus:
And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
Luke 24:
The Bible isn’t here for us to find clever ways to live in this life. No, the Bible is here to show us Christ.
Once we realize this we realize truths like:
I am a sinner and only saved through Christ’s work and not my own.
My identity is not in what I can do, but what God has done for me.
My hope is not in people or a church, but in God who created all thing by speaking it into existence.
My hope is not in how I feel at any moment in time, but how God is working in my through the Spirit of Christ to change me into His image.
My salvation is not in how good I am or how well I do in living like a Christian, but solely in Jesus Christ.
What does it mean to GROW in Christ, it means that we search the Scripture to see Christ. To learn not about me, but about Him.
Calvin:
Institutes of the Christian Religion 1. Without Knowledge of Self There Is No Knowledge of God
The miserable ruin, into which the rebellion of the first man cast us, especially compels us to look upward.
